Status: Updates Every Friday

Something Reckless

Preface: Luke

“Somebody pass Luke the bottle, he’s having a pansy moment!” I laughed, looking over beside me in the truck at the girl I picked up from the bar after the team’s big lacrosse win. She laughed along with the rest of them, her eyes a dazed and confused Jack Daniels mess. I felt Chris hand me the bottle of Jack and took a swig, despite hating that kick I always had to force myself to go through just to swallow it.

“Atta boy!” Chris shouted, patting me on the shoulder. I noticed his seat belt was off and motioned to him to put it on but he waved me off. He handed the bottle over to Blaine who was supposed to be designated driver but had taken a swig or two already on the way to the after party.

Blaine looked over his shoulder at me and winked. “Nice snag.” He said, looking my date up and down before taking another swig. I laughed, swinging my arm around her shoulders and giving them a slight squeeze. I didn’t know her name yet, but I would.

Chris calmed down from him alcoholic high a little and finally sat still beside me long enough to start reminiscing like intoxicated people always did once they hit the right level of drunk. “Dude, remember that time I hid you in my basement for a fucking week when we were like twelve?” He started laughing hard at the memory.

“How did my parents not kill me?” I asked rhetorically, laughing with him. That was the week my dad had found my stash of porn magazines and left a note at the top of them that said we needed to talk after I was done school. I flipped out of embarrassment and left. There was a search party and everything and once I went home again, aside from the grounding I got, all he said about the magazines was that my sexual drive was normal but at least learn to hide them better. Chris loves telling that story now.

“I think I got in more trouble after my parents found out than you did!” That was true; my parents have always been relatively easy on me.

“Wait, why were you hiding?” The girl beside me interrupted, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Well, well, well, my boy Luke here didn’t know that before the internet you had to delete your browsing history by shoving the magazines in a box and hiding them under your bed, not on top of the end table.” I shook my head, trying to control my laughter.

“You left your porn on the end table?!” She shouted. “What an amateur.” I looked at her and felt a stronger attraction to her than before. She had big brown eyes and fair skin which seemed like the perfect combination to match her shiny brown hair.

“I was twelve!” I shouted, throwing my hands in the air. Chris gave me a pat and got off of his seat, learning forward to talk to Blaine. I couldn’t make out what they were saying but they were laughing uncontrollably.

I saw the light before I felt the truck smash. I wasn’t aware of what was happening in that instant but I felt pain shoot up my legs as the world spun around me. My back jolted once, twice, three times before everything went still. My throat felt like it was burning and I realized I had been shouting incoherently. I felt the blood rush from my head, no doubt because the truck was now sitting upside down, and I turned my head to the side.

I saw Chris; he was screaming. His eyes met mine with panic and I tried to get out of the truck but was cemented to the seat. There was so much blood… on me, on Chris, on the road beside him. I felt myself pounding against the metal of the truck, trying desperately to escape it so that I could get to him. He grabbed his neck where the bulk of his blood had been coming from and held his hand there. I felt myself screaming his name repeatedly until my lungs gave out and my vision blurred; then everything went black.

The next morning the girl I picked up from the bar walked in. A perfect stranger to me as I tried to grasp onto the events of the night. I remember vaguely asking if she was okay. She said she was, that the bulk of the injuries didn’t affect her and she just had a few scratches. I remember feeling relieved for her, but my relief didn’t last long. Her name was Summer and she was the one to tell me that Chris, my childhood best friend, my partner in crime, the guy I would have taken a bullet for, Chris Commerce was dead.
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I take no credit for the photo used in this layout.